Runelords 52.0 - Zahira's Ruin
The three men retreated into the hall of Conjuration, reuniting with Quint and Doberman. Exhausted, they scattered about the room, shoving the piles of books and half-finished projects off of chairs to have a place to sleep. Eamon cleared off a bench to lay down, while Virgil tidied up a plush chair; rather than clear his own space, Khyr just snuggled up on top of Virgil. When they later awoke, they were refreshed in body if not entirely in spirit. A quick conversation with Doberman revealed that the conjurers' plan, which they had been hoping might lend them support against the war-ready evokers, was actually just to wait until the other branches had weakened to the point where they could easily be overpowered with crafty dealing. This obviously was of little benefit to the adventurers in the short term, and they were left with their constant fall back plan of 'hoping for the best'. Virgil spoke to Quint once more, confirming that the man did indeed want to stay here. He asserted that he did: this collection was the culmination of conjuration science and it would be a devastating shame to leave without fully appreciating it. At Virgil's request, he furnished them with three scrolls of Teleport so that they could leave the mountainside and make their way to Xin Shalast without him, and Quint added that he would go back to Sandpoint when he finished here and that someone should take care of his cat and house in the meantime. The four men traded farewells which held the undercurrent of true sentiment before the three adventurers collected themselves and left the wizard to his work. Pausing in the sewer-like room at the head of the wing, the three tried to fashion a plan: they needed to collect Zahira and neutralize her, while knowing that activating the Runeforge would alert the necromancers, that both Luna and Avazeen would respond to them with violence, and that the evokers were a constant threat. Regardless, they had to move forwards and they settled on a plan that hinged on speed and luck before anything else: Eamon would have to hold Luna back while Khyr distracted Avazeen, giving Virgil the time to activate the pool and enchant a pair of gloves. He would pass the gloves to Khyr, allowing him to run to Luna and grab Zahira, while he enchanted a sword. With the book in hand, Khyr could submerge ZahiZahira in the pool while Virgil stabbed her with the sword; hopefully that would destroy or at least sufficiently disrupt the book enough to weaken its bond on Luna, and give them the moment they'd need to retreat through the portal with her and without the book. Once they were more secure, they could remove the necromantic amulet from Luna, and hopefully things could begin to return to normal. Settled, the group moved to the mouth of the hallway, looking out into the main room. Using a simple illusion, Virgil granted them cover so they could watch for their target, hoping that no one would try to enter the conjuration wing. Inside the main hall was only Nisa, attended by her diminutive skeleton butler. All was silent save for the soft sound of Nisa poking at a wall terminal and the statue of Alaznist glared angrily out over the pool, now restored to its original state. As they watched, a man they didn't recognize, likely an evoker, walked over to Nisa; he spoke harshly to her, though his words were not clear, and the butler was forced to shoo him away before the wizard gave a huff and stormed off, heading back into the evocation hall. They continued to wait. Meanwhile, Luna and Avazeen finished destroying the swarm of rats, producing a rather large pile of bones. Avazeen waved his hand, sending a large portion of them to form a sort of armour plating on his rat-like creation, mentioning that they were not of high enough quality for their purposes anyhow. At Luna's insistence, he filtered through the pile with the precision of a jeweler, selecting out those few pieces which had retained enough of the veil's power to be of worth. The end result was a small pile that the two necromancers politely yet firmly argued over, haggling and justifying to try and take the greater share. Luna would not be dissuaded from taking what she needed, as Zahira assessed that about half of the pile was what she required for her experiment. Eventually, Luna took half of the current stock with a promise that Avazeen would get his choice of the next batches; Avazeen was not particularly pleased, but he acquiesced. With that settled, he was eager to go collect samples of actual worth; Luna was still recalcitrant to give him permission to murder her companions, but she had no issue with killing the evokers or going to collect the bodies that apparently resided in the illusion wing. Some time passed before the adventurers' moment came: Luna and Avazeen entered the hallway, followed by the rat-like bone golem. With a quick nod, they set their plan into action: Khyr shrouded them all in Invisibility before they dashed out. Before the necromancers knew what was fully happening, Eamon grabbed Luna, Khyr attacked Avazeen and Virgil had begun to activate the pool. The rat lunged at Khyr with its notched bone-sword, which Avazeen gleefully introduced as the 'Nine-Lives Stealer', and Khyr struggled under the assault. Eamon did not fair altogether too much better: Luna's paralytic teeth sunk into his arm, leaving him temporarily stunned as she wriggled out and away, screaming at them about their treachery. With the pool activated, Virgil went to toss in the gloves only to be stopped by an invisible barrier that Avazeen had apparently erected. He wasn't the only one with magic, however: Virgil dispelled the shield, allowing the gloves to fall in and absorb the silvery bright essence of jealousy: the fusion of envy and lust, the opposite of necromancy. Before he could fish them out, however, they floated up and out of the pool towards Avazeen, who was using Mage Hand. Grabbing them in his clothes to avoid their touch, Avazeen attempted to retreat back into the necromantic hall; Khyr dashed after, casting spells to hinder Avazeen, as the rat hunted him down, obviously concerned about the cat and no one else. Luna, meanwhile, tried to flee herself while hurling spells at Eamon; to everyone's dismay, she was not the only one: using Luna's body, Zahira also joined the fight, channeling powerful necromantic spells through Luna's hands. All the while, Nisa calmly watched. Virgil enchanted his flaming sword forged by the Shivering Ones as Eamon shook off the paralysis and dashed after Luna, grabbing her again. Unfortunately, it was clear that Khyr could not reach Zahira, tied up as he was with two opponents. Gripping the jealous sword, Virgil made to chase after Luna as well, but he was suddenly assaulted by a distracting conflict of mind: the dominant sword he had enchanted earlier to stand against Karzoug was reacting, and it was obvious that one person could not wield multiple runeforged items. He quickly released the belt that strapped that sword to his waist, letting the dominant blade fall to the floor as he ran towards his greater immediate concern. As Eamon struggled to hold her, Virgil caught up and tried to skewer the tome that hung at Luna's side with his sword, injuring Luna in the process. Luna screamed hate and vitrol at Virgil in particular, and Zahira cast a terrifying spell that, had Virgil's will been any weaker, might have killed him outright. Turning to Eamon, Zahira cast Eyebite, gripping Eamon in a panic and sending him running away from her in terror; it wasn't enough though, as Virgil managed with an extremely precise stab to pierce straight through Zahira. It seemed that the scream that pierced the room was more than Luna could have made alone, and a wave of awful sickness gripped Virgil's mind and body. It wasn't enough to stop him, however: with a mighty swing, he tore the book from its clasp and hurled both sword and impaled book towards the Runeforge. Teetering on the edge, it slipped in, and the resounding wail of pain and fury was all-encompassing. Avazeen and Luna both scrabbled towards the pool, though the lich reached it first: with his own cries of pain, he grabbed the sword that burned his hands and pulled, trying to reclaim the book from the runeforge as it ate at the pages. Eamon and Virgil, trying to shake off the magics that debilitated them, ran to the center as well. In Avazeen's hurry to attend his mistress, he had dropped the gloves, giving Khyr the chance to dodge past the rat and scoop them up, dashing towards the pool and, above it, the portal. As Luna reached out for the book, helping Avazeen reclaim it from the well, Khyr crashed bodily into her, sending them both careening through the portal and away from the Runeforge. Before Virgil had a chance to react, Eamon did the same to him, shoving both men through the portal. Avazeen and Nisa were left behind to collect what questionably remained of the Magelord Zahira's mind and soul, bound in a heavily-damaged book. Luna and Khyr found themselves in the icy cave on Materia that they had left from. Beside herself with rage and grief and pain, Luna was reduced to a screaming, sobbing wreck who lunged at Khyr, trying to bite into his collarbone. She was not physically imposing by any means, and though her teeth were sharp they were not the most effective of weapons; however, the paralytic effect took hold, leaving Khyr powerless to resist her assault as she tore ferally at his shoulder. Virgil and Eamon were not far behind, and Virgil vomited as he hit the stone floor, still trying to overcome the supernatural nausea that had overtaken him. Regardless, he pushed himself up and collected the enchanted gloves that Khyr clearly grasped as Eamon grappled Luna once more. Tugging them on, Virgil apologized deeply as he tore away part of Luna's shirt to reveal the necromantic emblem buried in her sternum. Grasping it in his fingertips, he gave a sharp, brutal yank, tearing it out of her along with a sizeable chunk of flesh, and with a final scream of unimaginable pain, Luna collapsed. Khyr shook off the paralysis and joined the other two men as they struggled to stabilize the undead, the ambiguity of their possible success only further muddled by their entire lack of first aid knowledge. Eventually, they decided that they had done everything they could do, and they hoped dearly that they had been successful: that Luna would wake up, and could once more be herself. Peeling the skin and muscle off of the medallion, Virgil wrapped it in one of the gloves and placed it in his bag of holding for later. Looking to each other, the three nodded tiredly before picking up Luna and, taking one of the scrolls of Teleport, bringing themselves back to the library at Jorgenfist. Walking inside the quiet library, they were met by a strange man who called himself Toma. It took only a moment for Alicia to join them; Toma was another disciple of her order, and had come to help her in her research and hopeful fulfillment of their ancient quest to build a portal to heaven. Alicia greeted them happily, glad for their safety; she looked at Luna with grave concern, and Virgil asked her for any help she might be able to offer an undead. Unfortunately, she could only perform mundane medicine as her magics were tailored for the living, but she helped suture up the damage as best she could, attaching the torn flesh back in an ugly semblance of what it had been. Unsure of how long it might be until she awoke, if in fact she would, they left her to lie on a bench. Alicia meanwhile explained that the group had been gone for three months, and that Shadliss had left many weeks ago to return home. The men pursed their lips, lightly concerned for her safety and for the loss of time. However, there was nothing to do at the moment. The three sat down on another bench, and it wasn't long until two of the three were asleep: Eamon lay slumped over as Khyr napped with his legs wrapped around Eamon and his head on Virgil's lap. Virgil, lost deep in concern, waited. Category:Rise of the Runelords